2024 Election Priorities - Risk Mitigation, Climate and Disaster response

Overview

Queensland’s agriculture sector and the supply chain are increasingly being exposed to natural hazards and weather events that impact their productivity, efficiency and farm business viability.

These events impact farming enterprises through the loss of livestock, crops and produce; damage to infrastructure, equipment and buildings; damage to standing crops; and erosion of carefully managed land assets such as soils and waterways. These events also have significant impacts on the mental health and wellbeing of farmers, and more broadly the viability of regional communities in which they operate.

QFF's Position

QFF is calling for a review of the current framework that supports farm businesses vulnerable to natural hazard impacts. The framework needs to better enable farm businesses return to business-as-usual activities in a timely manner, minimising their downtime and restoring production as soon as possible.

QFF believes the best opportunity to embed resilience building is in the recovery phase. There is a need for long term funding to ensure support resources are available on ground, in the immediate aftermath of a weather event. These resources need to be already embedded in local communities to be able to effectively assist in recovery and pivot to a resilience building role. This would also ensure the skills and capacity of these professionals remain in regional areas where they’re needed most.

Policy Actions

Work with agriculture industries to review the scope of assistance activities under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA)and the Queensland Drought assistance measures to ensure farm viability and sustainability of agriculture assets.
In the interim to achieving the above, make the following changes to the guidelines for Disaster Assistance Recovery Grants and Queensland Drought Assistance Program administered by the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA):
- Review the definition of a primary producer and appropriate consideration of farm related ‘off farm income’ to reflect the changing nature of farming enterprises.
- Include normal wages of employees as eligible costs for essential clean-up and repairs for immediate resumption of the farm business to be covered by the Disaster Assistance Recovery Grants.
- Include replanting of in ground and tree crops as an eligible recovery activity under the DRFA in line with the replacement of livestock.
- Review the requirement for assistance programs administered under QRIDA to be administered via regulation that requires parliamentary approval.
Commit to long term investment in a ‘spine of resources’ for the agriculture sector in collaboration with industry to support farmers across the cycle of weather events. QFF calls for an allocation to industry of $8 million over four years to establish this resource as part of a broader climate mitigation strategy. QFF also calls for a long-term commitment by the Queensland Government to co-funding with the Australian Government for the Farm Business Resilience Program.
Make preparedness grant funding available for all natural disasters equivalent to that provided by the Drought Assistance Program. Farm businesses should be supported to build resilience and prepare for all natural disasters not just drought.
Remove stamp duty on crop and parametric insurance to support farmers in managing their own business risk. The 9% stamp duty on these insurance products is a barrier to primary producers managing their own risk, increasing reliance on government support, and is a significant deterrent to primary producers in the adoption of these products.